A cup is exactly three tenths of a half of a metre wide/long divided by the inverse square of a millilitre, provided the initial measurement was in cubic zlotys at half a pint over Pi.

Let me know then next time you pay for a kilogram of petrol at the pump. Some things make more sense to measure by volume, others by weight. This is disjoint from imperial vs metric.

Fuel would make more sense to measure by mass, because the volume and energy density changes with temperature. It just happens to be easier to measure by volume. I believe many locales mandate pumps which correct for temperature and dispense slightly more volume on a hot day.

Yes, it makes more sense to measure something fluid by volume when it doesn't fit on a scale.

Also, the fact that gasoline pumps are pressurised and standardise the volume based on a certain temperature should be a clue to one pitfall of volume-based measurements.

Precise recipes, i.e. anything related to baking, where ambient temperatures matter - everything is measured in grams, even water. I'm so used to this by now that measuring anything by volume sounds disappointing, let alone dark age units like cups and spoons. I get it, not everyone is serious about cooking enough to own ingredient scales but are these users still the majority of recipe consumers?

I don't bake much but for all my other cooking, I can mess with most ingredients by 100% with little delta in the experience. Sure it tastes a little different but I'm not a factory, this is home cooking. This also makes you much more resilient to missing an ingredient.

Making Coq-au-Vin, and use double the chicken? Probably not a problem. Add carrots, 0 carrots, totally fine.

Barbeque? You can do all sorts of things with the spice mix, it'll likely come out fine.

Making mac and cheese? 4x the cheese, totally fine, just keep adding it till it melts. Too thick? Add cream. Not tasty enough, add some bbq sauce. Measure? Why!

I commonly use a Pinch and a Dash of seasoning. Really it's tasting it and knowing what's off and being able to balance.

Because here's a real truth: every batch of a given ingredient likely has different strength. Dried, fresh, been in the jar for 2 years, brand new from the store, McCormick vs Store Brand vs Different part of the country/world... Also your vegetables will taste different depending on time of year, location, variety, as will your meats, dairy, cheeses, etc, literally everything.

Yes. I cook based on recipes a lot and anecdotally so do a lot of people I know and we still use cups, table/teaspoons and so forth.

The rest of the world uses litres instead of gallons. Much easier to then convert to weight by using molar mass of petrol and volume.

> As someone who lived in the US for 8 years... How much is a cup?

While its not quite right (its a little smaller), at the level of doing a recipe, 250ml [0] (but for flour in baking, you should use weight, not volume, anyway.)

[0] 4 cups = 2 pints = 1qt ≈ 1l